Page 3 of Bound By Dance and Desire

Not a moment ago I had been lamenting the lack of challenge in my life, the need for battle. Protecting this fragile mortal would be battle enough. There were enemies in my Court who would dance in glee if I handed them such a weapon against me.

Only fools summoned the Dark. For the Dark would always answer.

But the reward for my idiocy would be sinking into that sweet body, tasting her skin, inhaling her scent. Coming to learn the mind housed in flesh crafted for my pleasure.

Soon. A mortal female should be simple enough to seduce. Which one would tell even the lowliest of Fae warriors no? It was laughable.

“Put a quad on her,” I told Constin, resolve hardening as I controlled my body, willed my cock to settle the fuck down. Now wasnotthe time.

Constin stilled. “What?” Open shock in his voice.

“The dancer. Put a quad on her, discreetly.”

I paused, watching as she stepped gracefully onto her right toe and executed a full turn leading seamlessly into another series of spins.

They had a name for it, I knew, but though I was peripherally interested in my mother's hobby, not interested enough to know the names they called the various moves. Other than entrancing, when performed bymydancer.

Constin carried out the order, a telegem cupped in his palm, then turned back to me.

“Are you going to tell me why we just put a detail on a Houseless human female?”

I spoke three words with no direct translation into mortal language save soulbonded (thatwould be a delightful conversation, trying to explain the concept and why she could never return to her home again) and heard his inhalation of breath.

The disbelief he felt shuddered throughmea hundred-fold. This could not be, but yet it was. I was not a male to dance around truth when it was shoved in my face.

“Are you certain?” he asked. “Or are you bored?”

“You know better than that.”

Certain? I was certain only that she was mine. Human or no. If only five minutes ago I would have said I didn't want her, the choice was made now.

My mother was going to rampage. Realms.

The telegem in my pocket flared with sudden, searing heat and began to emit a Dark tune about an enchantress in a forest who lured disobedient faelings into her home and stewed them in her giant cauldron.

To this day, I was yet unclear about the moral of that particular story. Though I supposed the threat was the point, not the lesson.

I retrieved it, cupping the emerald in my hand to focus on a telepathic connection with my mother.

“Lord.”

“Andreien,”she snapped.“What are you doing? Why have you divided your detail?”

“There is no danger. I'll speak to you more later.”I released the link.

I’d pay for that later.

“She could be some kind of lure,” Constin said, his unease an echo of mine.

How could I blame him? This was fantastical. Soulbonded to a human? The Dark, clearly, had a perverse sense of humor.

“How could an enemy engineer a soulbond?” I asked. “And then know where to put her at the exact moment where I would stumble across her?”

The mortal glanced at me, caution in the tension of her mouth, though she had enough self-control to keep it from reaching her body.

A body that, as I stood, I continued to crave in a base, defiling way, helpless against the unraveling of obsession. I would have exhorted the Dark that this hunger not be the start of a spiraling rut, on top of a soulbond, but now I knew better.

“An Ancient could do it,” Constin said. “Or at least mimic the effects well enough to fool the stupid.”

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